Charlotte de Witte, Joris Voorn, rRoxymore, Wally Badarou to share their insights at ADE Sound Lab

ADE Sound Lab is always one of the most joyful parts of ADE, because it's where we get to see the music at the heart of club culture evolving in real time: professional and bedroom musicians get to mingle, share ideas and jam. It is a place to learn and to get inspired, either from the latest gear or your musical heroes, it's all there.

In case you missed: the 2019 program takes place at De Brakke Grond ánd Compagnietheater and will see the return of the MusicTalks, The Record Bag of..., In The Studio With..., Demo & Promopitches and the annual Demolition Panel, hosted by Dave Clarke.

Not sure what to expect? Here's an overview:

ADE MusicTalks
Get your questions ready! During ADE MusicTalks it is your time to pop the questions that others don't. There are some serious heroes among the latest additions, Wally Badarou for starters. For his work with the Compass Point All Stars (Grace Jones, Larry Levan, Tom Tom Club) alone the keyboardist would be assured a place in dance music history, but his work ever since has been bubbling with joyful invention and strangeness, and is as vital now as ever. From a veteran to a relative newcomer: Charlotte De Witte has had a rocket ride over the last few years, being a figurehead for the new popularity of techno, and taking on the world with her confident, acidic sets and releases. Amsterdam's hometown hero Joris Voorn, of course, isn't new to techno: he's proven himself a dozen times over with his rich, dreamy musical constructions and is achieving further maturity still with his imminent fourth album.

Add to these the already announced hardware legend Roger Linn, modular wizard and Stevie Wonder enabler Malcolm Cecil, big room artists Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano, and Arp Frique talking about his Improvised Suites for Analogue Machines, and you've got the most kaleidoscopic array of perspectives on electronic music making you could ever hope for.

The Flightcase of...
There's a new format for ADE Sound Lab this year: “The Flightcase Of...” - where visitors can get a glimpse inside the boxes of key artists' touring setups. This will be a chance to hear not just about the individual hardware they use, but how it comes together on stage, the fine line between improvisation and preparation, how to deal with mistakes or equipment glitches, the nature of live performance itself, and much more besides.

The Flightcase of... will also be pushing the boundaries of what live performance is, with Boris Acket, Colin Benders, Nick Verstand and a representative from the jaw-dropping 4DSOUND setup explaining how they create totally immersive audiovisual dreamworlds. Last but not least visitors will be hearing from Montpelier-via-Paris-via-Berlin artist rRoxymore about how she's consolidating her sonic innovations of the last seven years as she prepares to tour her stunning debut album.

The Record Bag Of... & In The Studio With...
2019 will see the return of the popular – and self explanatory – “The Record Bag Of...” with a peek inside the real or virtual crates of the father of techno himself Derrick May, deep and weird NTS Radio electrician Elena Colombi together with Knekelhuis's Mark van der Maat, and globe-bestriding house artists Roger Sanchez, Junior Sanchez, and DJ Sneak aka S-Men. And our “In The Studio With...” sessions are frankly off the hook this year. They include Chicago house forefathers Chip E & Joe Smooth, Dutch producer/songwriter Max Oude Weernink - MOW Music, and DJ Rob Black, Martiniquais/Belgian singer Charlotte Adigéry and Macau-born producer Bolis Popul on their mischievous Caribbean-synthpop collaboration, and club music / soundtrack star Eelke Kleijn on writing for both screen and dancefloor.

But wait, there's more: French emotional techno wrangler Rodriguez Jr., Dutch funkmaster Wantigga, Parisian Tïesto / DJ Snake collaboator Aazar, Bolivian/Belgian mystical experimentalist Susobrino, Amsterdam's mistress of tropical bass, Panda Lassow are all opening up their studio practice, and there will be a special Ableton session with the fantastically diverse and erudite duo Polynation.

Demo- & Promopitches
Alongside all of this, don't forget the most interactive part of all: the daily demopitch. Professionals will be added to the judging panels everyday and the sessions will run from Thursday to Saturday from 4:30 PM till 6:00 PM. You can register with a professional of choice in the morning on the first floor of the Compagnietheater. This is a rare opportunity to have your music listened to deeply by some of the most vital names in the game. Next to that two promopitches are being hosted on Thursday and Saturday for professional marketing and PR advise.

Demolition XXIV
ADE Sound Lab also features the annual Demolition panel - headed by DJ Dave Clarke, with DJs and producers including Eli Iwasa, Kristin Velvet and Todd Terry who are ready to give you an honest appraisal of your work, and maybe even some tips as to how to improve what you're doing. You can drop your CD or USB stick in the Demolition Demo box any time between 11:00 AM and 4:00 PM at the registration desk at De Brakke Grond.

Studio XL Sessions, workshops and more
In addition to all of the above this year's program will include Studio XL Sessions with San Holo and NGHTMRE, workshops about focusing on mixing and production by David Wrench and How to start a record Label featuring Marco Faraone and Nastia. On top of that Jonas Blue will host a panel focused on pop music.

There are three Gear Test Labs spread out over the Compagnietheater and De Brakke Grond where you can find a broad range of hardware and software brands to try out including Ableton, Moog, Pioneer DJ and Roland amongst others. A complete overview of the 2019 ADE Sound Lab program can be found here.

Photo credits: Isabel Renate la Poutré, Mark Richter, Mary Weinants and Max Knevel